Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Apparently there was a poet named Stanley Kunitz. He died this week. He was a poet laureate. I had never heard of him. On the radio they talked about him as I was driving yesterday and they read this poem and it was a revelation. Not too hot. Not too cold. Just right, like baby bear's porridge.

How shall the heart be reconciledto its feast of losses?In a rising windthe manic dust of my friends,those who fell along the way,bitterly stings my face.Yet I turn, I turn,exulting somewhat,with my will intact to gowherever I need to go,and every stone on the roadprecious to me.In my darkest night,when the moon was coveredand I roamed through wreckage,a nimbus-clouded voicedirected me:"Live in the layers,not on the litter."Though I lack the artto decipher it,no doubt the next chapterin my book of transformationsis already written.I am not done with my changes.